‘Bloody hard’: Newcastle Knights coach on sin bin drama

Knights coach Adam O’Brien has spoken about the NRL’s crackdown on high shots and the toll it’s taking on players.

Knights coach Adam O’Brien says the NRL’s high shot crackdown has made the game difficult on players.

There were seven sin bins across the first three matches of Anzac weekend. Two of those occurred – one for each side – in the first five minutes of Newcastle’s 26-12 loss to the Warriors.

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“I was concerned that that was going to set a tone for the whole game,” O’Brien said in his post-match press conference.

The Knights mentor went onto make the point that recent rule changes have been designed to “quicken” the game up, which in turn creates fatigue.

However, O’Brien is concerned that fatigue is leading to accidents in tackles and in turn, costly sin bins.

Watch the sin bins in the video player above

Adam O'Brien talking after the game and Leo Thompson’s tackle.

“I haven’t been across the other games … but it’s a hard game for these boys to play at the moment.

“All our rule changes are around fastening the game up and putting more fatigue in it and now we’re cracking down on accidents.

“Accidents are going to happen when the game is this fast and there’s that much fatigue. We’ve made the rule changes and it’s hard for them to play at the moment.”

O’Brien pointed to an incident during last weekend’s loss to Cronulla.

“It happened last week with James Schiller. He was trying to stop a try at full speed and brushes a chin and gets 10 minutes,” he said.

“It’s not part of the tip sheet to hit blokes in the head but as I said, the game is fast and there’s a lot of fatigue.

“I understand we don’t want to be hitting people in the head but getting sent to the bin all the time is bloody hard.

“Some of them are unacceptable but there are a lot of innocuous ones that are getting punished pretty hard.”

Marata Niukore and Leo Thompson were sin-binned for high shots.

The Warriors will also be sweating on a tackle from Marata Niukore that saw him sin-binned and placed on report early.

In just the second minute of the clash Niukore caught Knights centre Bradman Best on the chin with his shoulder forcing a penalty against the Warriors.

Referee Wyatt Raymond wasted no time in sending Niukore to the sin bin.

“It is direct contact straight to the head with moderate force from the shoulder, so he’s on report and he’s in the bin,” Raymond said.

Steve Roach had no argument with the sin bin decision.

“You have just got to be so careful with the way the game is played now,” Roach said.

Rocco Berry shows the scars of the battle during the Warriors’ win. (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

“There is not much room for error there with the tackle over the top.

“But they have set the edict now that if you tackle high and with direct contact you will go straight to the sin bin, so at least we all know the rules now.”

Moments later in the fifth minute Knights prop Leo Thompson was sent to the sin bin and placed on report for a high shot on Rocco Berry.

“Here we go again,” Andrew Voss said.

Both players face a nervous wait on the match review committee given the crackdown on high shots and suspensions over the last fortnight.

Originally published as ‘Bloody hard’: Newcastle Knights coach on sin bin drama